Shattered Glass
by 3am-updates
Summary: Three hundred years is a long time for someone to be alone. It's very easy to get lonely, very easy to break under pressure with no one to help you. Eventually, you just break, fracture. Not unlike broken glass.
1. Chapter 1

Alone.

adjective.

Having no one else present.

"He was alone."

Synonyms: by oneself, on one's own, all alone, solo, lone, solitary, single, singly, unattended, unchaperoned, partnerless, companionless.

Lonely

adjective.

Sad because one has no friends or company.

"Lonely people who have no one to care for them."

Synonyms: isolated, alone, all alone, friendless, companionless, with no one to turn to, outcast, forsaken, abandoned, rejected, unloved, unwanted.

Jack Frost was alone.

He had no one to talk to. No one knew his name. No one could see him, and those rare few who could ignored him. He had been alone for 300 years.

Jack Frost was lonely.

No one cared for him. His only companion was the wind, but she couldn't touch him, and he could barely understand her. The wind was primordormal, and didn't understand. He was abandoned by the moon, and unwanted by everyone else.

Jack Frost had tried.

He had tried everything. He tried games, frost drawings, messages, blizzards. He tried to be good. He tried yelling at them. He tried to gain the other's attention. He tried writing himself into books. He tried so hard, but still no one saw him.

Jack Frost pleaded.

He begged. He screamed. He asked for just a little. Just a little of something. He asked, and begged, and yelled, and screamed, and whispered with broken voice. Each night he spoke to the moon, and each night the moon stayed silent.

Jack Frost hated silence.

He hated how it crushed him, consumed him. He hated how it stole his words away. He hated the emptiness in it. But most of all, he hated the echo it left.

Jack Frost stayed strong.

For 300 years, he didn't break. He didn't kill. His heart didn't freeze, and he kept spreading fun. He didn't break, no matter what some might have told you.

One day, Jack Frost shattered.

And he took the world with him.


	2. Chapter 2

The day Jack Frost shattered, the world saw through his eyes, if only for a second.  
For a single second in time, the world was grey. Just grey. No black, no white, just an endless blur of familiar grey faces and dull eyes.  
The children stopped playing. The adults stopped working T.V.s turned off, and phones died, and all the bleakness of it all came through. No one seemed to care, in that one moment. It didn't matter that there was no color. This was how it was, how it will be. How it has been, for as long as anyone in that moment could remember.  
Then the illusion broke, and the memory of grey was washed away and drowned. For all except one, who kept living in the lie.  
The other spirits felt it, of course. A shift in the balance, a wrong feeling echoing off every corner. There was more fear than there should have been, less wonder and awe, dangerously low amounts of joy.  
It shouldn't have been this instantaneous. One little frost sprite shouldn't have made much of a difference, shouldn't have had such a drastic effect on life.  
For some reason, the balance was off that day, and no spirit or sprite knew why. After all, who would think of Jack Frost in such a situation?


	3. Chapter 3

Jack Frost found that he didn't care anymore.  
It was odd, for he had always cared, even if he told himself that he didn't. He had cared every time a car slid on his ice, every time his cold had hurt someone. He had cared entirely to much (or maybe not enough) when the mortals froze to death, because of him (he was a killer, would always be a killer, couldn't change).  
Now he watches through dead eyes, scenes playing out in slow-motion (and yet entirely to fast). He almost feels detached (he tells himself it's not happening, as he watches them die. It's not real. It's all in his head, after all). He doesn't care when the children get lost in his snow (he still hears them crying). He certainly doesn't care if he's not doing a job he never knew he had (though he briefly wonders where all the joy has gone).  
No, he just doesn't care anymore.  
(He doesn't care, but somehow he cares too much to let go).


	4. Chapter 4

Pitch Black has hit a lucky streak. Fear levels skyrocketed, and belief in the Guardians has gone down. He feels himself getting stronger, feels more nightmares being had. His own belief is growing, and he rediscovers old tricks he thought were lost to time.  
Perhaps it is the remains of a mortal mind (because Pitch definitely knows better) but he finds that he is curious about what has cause this. Against logic, he investigates.  
Pitch doesn't actually like what he finds.

They are growing weaker.  
Bunny wakes up one morning to find himself smaller, much smaller than normal. He finds himself defenseless and completely useless. He doesn't know how he's lost so much belief (Easter isn't for a few months) but the fleeting though is lost as he makes preparations.  
North finds himself growing tired, his age finally catching up with him. He can't rest though, because the toys and prototypes aren't working. He works harder on preparing for Christmas. He can't figure out what happened, because last Christmas went almost to well, he shouldn't be losing belief. He doesn't allow himself to worry about it, because he needs to make sure Christmas will be bigger and better so they can gain belief again.  
Tooth finds herself tired, but she's too busy to realize what is going on. If she had drifted down to standing instead of flying, did it really matter? She keeps pushing through the nausea, the headaches, until she is passing out. Only then does she start wondering, beginning to worry. She contacts the others and begins planning.  
Sandy is the least affected. He didn't have as many believers to begin with (good dreams had been slowly dying out before) and he had never needed belief to survive anyway. Yes, it helped. But his power stemmed from something more ancient than belief, fickle thing as it was. But he has always been observant, and he notices how it is becoming harder and harder to spread dreams. Not because he is weak, but because no one will take them.  
(Out of all of them, he is the only one who thinks to check on the Protector of Fun, but when he gets there, it's too late).


End file.
